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In recent years, for the first time in Italy, impact evaluation has been requested as a standard for social projects implemented by public–private partnerships and, more specifically, a condition for them to be financed through the national educational poverty reduction program. This article presents and discusses the Developmental Outcome Monitoring and Evaluation (DOME) model, a mixed and participatory method for the impact assessment of complex and innovative educational poverty reduction programs.

This article presents the findings of a re-evaluation of all 5,200 aid projects that OECD donors reported for 2012 as \"climate change adaptation\"-related, based on the \"Rio marker\" classification system. The findings confirm those from the academic and grey literature that the absence of independent quality control makes the adaptation Rio marker data almost entirely unreliable. This lack of credibility impedes meaningful assessments of progress toward the mainstreaming of adaptation in development cooperation activities. It also erodes trust in international climate negotiations, given that these data are frequently used in the financial reporting of developed countries to the UNFCCC.

Theory of Change (ToC) is an emerging methodology in the practice of development programmes, often contrasted with the dominant logical framework. This article reviews current debates around ToC before identifying five aspects that are appreciated in practice. It appears that these aspects mostly cover areas where the logical framework is not - or is no longer - meeting the needs of practitioners. Subsequently, the article analyses experiences in ToC training for NGO staff and concludes that ToC can address shortcomings of the logical framework - if only by going back to some of the roots of the logical framework.

Demonstrating how agricultural research contributes to development outcomes is difficult but necessary given competing demands for scarce resources. This article summarises an adaptation of the \"theory of change\" approach and lessons derived from its application to improve the design and implementation of an agricultural research for development programme for greater impact. It was applied to Maziwa Zaidi, a programme that tested integrated interventions to catalyse the transformation of smallholder dairy value chains in Tanzania. Despite challenges, the approach was found useful for planning, communication, managing complexity, monitoring behavioural changes and deriving lessons to adapt future programme activities amid complexity and uncertainties.

The conservation community is increasingly focusing on the monitoring and evaluation of management, governance, ecological, and social considerations as part of a broader move toward adaptive management and evidence-based conservation. Evidence is any information that can be used to come to a conclusion and support a judgment or, in this case, to make decisions that will improve conservation policies, actions, and outcomes. Perceptions are one type of information that is often dismissed as anecdotal by those arguing for evidence-based conservation. In this paper, I clarify the contributions of research on perceptions of conservation to improving adaptive and evidence-based conservation. Studies of the perceptions of local people can provide important insights into observations, understandings and interpretations of the social impacts, and ecological outcomes of conservation; the legitimacy of conservation governance; and the social acceptability of environmental management. Perceptions of these factors contribute to positive or negative local evaluations of conservation initiatives. It is positive perceptions, not just objective scientific evidence of effectiveness, that ultimately ensure the support of local constituents thus enabling the long-term success of conservation. Research on perceptions can inform courses of action to improve conservation and governance at scales ranging from individual initiatives to national and international policies. Better incorporation of evidence from across the social and natural sciences and integration of a plurality of methods into monitoring and evaluation will provide a more complete picture on which to base conservation decisions and environmental management. La comunidad de la conservación cada vez se enfoca más en el monitoreo y la evaluación del manejo, la gobernanza y las consideraciones ecológicas y sociales como parte de un movimiento general hacia un manejo adaptativo y una conservación basada en evidencias. La evidencia es cualquier información que puede usarse para llegar a una conclusión y para apoyar cualquier dictamen o, en este caso, para tomar decisiones que mejorarán las políticas, las acciones y los resultados de la conservación. Las percepciones son un tipo de información que generalmente es descartada como anecdótica por aquellos que defienden la conservación basada en las evidencias. En este artículo aclaro las contribuciones de la investigación a las percepciones de la conservación para mejorar la conservación adaptativa y basada en evidencias. Los estudios de las percepciones de las personas locales pueden proporcionar conocimiento importante para las observaciones, los entendimientos y las interpretaciones de los impactos sociales y los resultados ecológicos de la conservación; la legitimidad de la gobernación de la conservación; y la aceptación social del manejo ambiental. Las percepciones de estos factores contribuyen a las evaluaciones locales positivas o negativas de las iniciativas de conservación. Son las percepciones positivas, no sólo la evidencia científica y objetiva de la efectividad, las que al final aseguran el apoyo de los votantes locales y así permitir el éxito a largo plazo de la conservación. Las investigaciones sobre las percepciones pueden informar a los cursos de acción para mejorar la conservación y la gobernación a escalas que van desde las iniciativas individuales a las políticas nacionales e internacionales. Una mejor incorporación de las evidencias que van desde las ciencias sociales a las ciencias naturales y una integración de la pluralidad de métodos al monitoreo y a la evaluación proporcionarán una imagen más completa sobre en que basar las decisiones de conservación y el manejo ambiental.

This practical note highlights lessons learnt during the data collection of two large field surveys as part of the ongoing \"Sindh Union Council and Economic Strengthening Support\" (SUCCESS) programme in southern Pakistan. The experience is discussed in terms of language barriers, the educational status of households, dealing with people's expectations and non-cooperation, and the weather conditions. The note also highlights the practice of public sharing of data in real-time to improve the design and implementation of future surveys, especially those measuring poverty and quality of life.

This article aims to explore whether ICT-enabled real-time data (RTD) systems can help to improve the operationalisation of adaptive management of international development programmes. Using a qualitative multi-method approach consisting of 48 semi-structured key expert interviews and four exploratory case studies, we found that RTD can successfully inform rapid tactical adaptive management in development programmes but is, on its own, of only limited use for most strategic adaptive management. The research identified multiple contextual barriers to the use of RTD for adaptive management. These barriers need to be addressed to realise the full potential of real-time adaptive management of programmes.

Increasingly, development initiatives are delivered through consortia, which in some cases include a formal \"learning partner\" role. Who are learning partners and what is their role? What is their potential comparative advantage in different knowledge and learning processes? Drawing on traditions of knowledge management and organisational learning, and documents on 11 learning partner roles, this article suggests that they may contribute more to heterogenous groups, at a programme-wide rather than project level, and in addressing inter-organisational barriers to knowledge sharing and use. The article offers a systematic approach and questions to guide future inquiry into their roles and effectiveness in practice.

The international development community is focusing on women's empowerment as a key means of achieving high-level development goals. In this context, many development programmes, such as Feed the Future, take a market-based approach to empowerment focusing on access to and control over resources as the primary drivers of change. This kind of empowerment programming, however, often loses sight of power relations which structure access to resources and opportunities. This article, therefore, explores the limitations of economic-based approaches to empowerment that permeate the international development space, and provides strong evidence that a broader multi-dimensional approach is needed to support women's empowerment.